Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered PS5 Upgrade Options Explained

Excitement quickly turned to confusion when Sony announced that a remastered version of Marvel’s Spider-Man would be released for PS5 as part of the upcoming Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition. What should have been a simple cause for celebration was complicated by questions regarding how this remaster would fit into the sometimes confusing world of next-gen upgrade options.

See, if you buy the recently confirmed PS4 version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you can upgrade to the PS5 version of the game at no extra cost. By that logic, some fans assumed that those who own the PS4 version of Marvel’s Spider-Man would be able to upgrade to the PS5 remastered edition of that game at no extra cost.

However, it turns out that’s absolutely not the case. Well…at least that’s most people’s first read of a lengthy (and only vaguely helpful) statement that Sony sent to Kotaku regarding the upgrade options of both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In what we hope is a somewhat helpful attempt to make sense of this madness, here are a few of the things you need to know about the relationship between these various versions of the game.

• If you buy Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for PS5 (which retails for $69.99), you gain access to the PS5 edition of Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered, and various other digital bonuses included in the Ultimate Edition
• If you buy the Launch Edition of Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS5 (which retails for $49.99), you will receive the PS5 edition of that game and will have the option of paying a $20 upgrade fee to access Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered and the other Ultimate Edition bonuses
• If you purchase Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS4, you will only be able to access Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered if you upgrade to the PS5 Launch Edition of Miles Morales for free and then pay the aforementioned $20 upgrade fee.
• If you own Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4, there is no direct way to upgrade your copy of the PS4 game to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered for PS5.
• Sony does not currently plan to release Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered as a standalone PS4 or PS5 game.
• If you own the PS4 version of Marvel’s Spider-Man, you will be able to play that game on PS5 via the console’s backward compatibility options. However, that backward-compatible version of the game will not feature any of the technical upgrades featured in the remaster.

Got all that? Good. Now explain it to us.

In all seriousness, the basic idea here is that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered is tied to Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for PS5. There is currently no way to play the remaster outside of accessing that edition of the game either by straight-up purchasing it or using some kind of upgrade path to gain access to it via another edition of the game.

The problem here, then, isn’t just that this upgrade system is confusing, but that much of the confusion stems from Sony refusing to make Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered more accessible to those who own the base game on PS4 or those who simply wish to purchase it outright. It’s possible they will change their mind on this subject and offer more expansive upgrade options as news of this policy spreads. At the moment, though, there’s been no indication that will be the case.